


In Which Time Goes By

by OrnateOtter



Series: Of Soulmates and Timing [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Awesome Darcy Lewis, Character Study, Dealing with rejection, Gen, Growing Up, Light Angst, Minor Character Death, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Teenager Darcy Lewis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 13:04:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9658562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrnateOtter/pseuds/OrnateOtter
Summary: It's a universal truth everybody knows. All psychologists agree. Meeting your soulmate is the most important, most defining moment in a person's life. Thankfully there's more to life than just soulmates.Take Darcy for example. She meets Tony Stark. She says his words. He says hers. He leaves.Her life doesn't stop there, though. It goes on. She meets new people. Most importantly, she lives other moments that she'll look back on later, and realize were just as defining as that one night during which she spent ten short minutes talking with a thirty-something billionaire who wasn't really sure what to do with her.(Five snapshots of Darcy Lewis' life in the years leading up to New Mexico)





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is the second installment in the series. In case you haven't read the previous one, I don't think reading the first part is necessary to understand this work, but it might clarify a couple of things.
> 
> That being said, this oneshot is exclusively a character-development study. I'm well aware it isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I personally really like writing the stuff! I'm posting it because I thought some of you might be interested in seeing how Darcy could transition from a teenager to the intern from the movie Thor. Let me know what you think!
> 
> The third part of the series might prove a bit more interesting for everybody, I think: it's from Tony's perspective. It's already written (though I do want to proofread it one last time) so I'll post it soon, at the latest by the end of next week. ;)
> 
> Thanks for reading!

There was no right way to react to, or deal with a rejection from your soulmate.

 

After meeting Tony Stark and hearing her Words from his lips, after watching the door close in her face and the car drive away, Darcy was left feeling for the first time in her life like she was standing on very treacherous grounds. She had no idea what to do, and couldn’t turn to anyone for advice.

 

She couldn’t see herself trying to speak to her mother. Had the woman been sober enough for them to talk in the first place, Darcy suspected she would have been more interested in trying to find a way to take advantage of the situation. Not that Darcy could blame her, since they both dreamed of getting out of Vegas and starting a new life, but Darcy would rather see it happen on her own terms and not because she’d extorted money from one of America’s top ten fortunes.

 

Obviously, her friends at school were out too. None of them had gotten past their soulmates-are-wonderful phase (to be fair, they were a lot less obvious and obnoxious about it than most girls their age). And although she’d always thought she could talk to them about anything, Darcy couldn’t imagine how they would react to the news that she’d met her soulmate and that it hadn’t gone well. After all, Josie had vehemently argued that the law about the Bonding Choice was useless; and Mel had rolled her eyes the whole time Mr. Grady walked them through the Supreme Court case, Lawson vs. White, commenting later over lunch that Jackie Lawson simply didn’t know how good she had it.

 

She’d briefly entertained going to her teachers, or even the school counselor for advice—they were supposed to be responsible adults, after all. But she couldn’t see any of them concerned enough with their students on a day to day basis to be willing to have a seat and listen to her personal, non-school related problems.

 

Left alone with her uncertainties and feeling more lost with each day, Darcy did the only thing she could: she read whatever she could get her hands on.

 

She started simple. She didn’t know much about Tony Stark other than that he was rich and famous and intelligent, so she gathered all her courage (it took a few weeks) and picked out a random magazine from the piles her mother kept next to the couch. Of course, she quickly realized how much of a mistake that was. Not only rich and intelligent, her soulmate was the genius son and heir of a genius war hero. The most complex-inducing were the photos though: he was on the cover of a tabloid, dated less than two weeks after they met, in between two tall and willowy blondes the little description in the bottom right corner noted to be Playboy models and twins.

 

After that, Darcy made it a point to completely ignore any and all magazines or newspapers talking about Tony Stark. She broadened her perspective to a more general subject—soulmates theories.

 

That particular perspective necessitated a great deal more intellectual effort on her part: she started to read studies and psychological essays about failed soulbonds. None of it brought her the answers she wanted, but the late nights spent bent over old scientific journals in her room came with such an improvement in her vocabulary and essay-writing over the following semester that it left her teachers completely dumbfounded.

 

It really was the only upside to the whole mess: with the amount of time she devoted to her schoolwork so she didn’t have time to think about anything else, she rose from promising student to the top of her year in a few months.

 

There was a price, though. Her friends, seeing her spending most of her breaks reading old paperbacks about nineteenth-century psychologists, were distancing themselves. And the atmosphere at home was tense too.

 

“I don’t get it. You’ve been moping around for months. You lock yourself up in your room and all you do is study! And you threw away some of my magazines—don’t think I haven’t noticed! What’s wrong with you?”

 

No matter that it had taken her a while, Celia Lewis had finally noticed her daughter was ‘feeling down’. And she wasn’t letting it go.

 

It was her way to express her worry, getting angry (her way to express a lot of things, for that matter). Maybe she was a little bit hurt too, because there used to be a time when Darcy and her mother shared more than just a living space, and now, no matter how many times Celia asked, the teenaged girl wouldn’t tell her what was wrong.

 

It was all the more symbolic on that day.

 

“I told you,” Darcy said without lifting her nose from her book. “I don’t want to go out.”

 

“Bullshit,” Celia snapped. “It’s your birthday. We always go out on your birthday. We go to the movies and we get dinner at Saul’s. We do it every year. Why don’t you wanna go now?”

 

“I just don’t want to.”

 

It was very telling of Darcy’s frame of mind that she refused to go anywhere to celebrate her fifteenth birthday.

 

In the mother and daughter’s rocky relationship, Darcy’s birthdays were one of the few constants. Without failure, every single year, Celia Lewis took her daughter out to the movies, followed by dinner at Saul’s, a moment all the more precious to Darcy that it was one of the rare days in the year her mother spent fully sober.

 

But this year, Darcy didn’t want to be reminded of her age, didn’t see the point in celebrating the fact that she was turning fifteen—fifteen! that seemed like such a ridiculously insignificant number.

 

“Darcy. . .” Suddenly, her mother was kneeling by her side, her wide blue eyes bright and worried.

 

It took more effort than Darcy would have liked to remain focused on her English homework, to pretend to be unaffected by her mother’s concern, when all she wanted was to let the older woman hold her for a while. She wished she could go back to a time when she was younger, when she idealized her mother and didn’t see all her shortcomings—it was so easy to accept her mother’s comforting and reassurances back then.

 

But now that Darcy was older, the flaws were impossible to ignore: she’d listen once Celia Lewis figured out her own shit.

 

“I don’t know how to help you, sweetie,” the woman confided after a long moment of hesitation.

 

“I don’t need help,” the teenager retorted evenly, scribbling down a few words to look like she was busy.

 

She was changing her writing as well—or trying to anyway.

 

The memory of her letters, round and childish as they wound around Tony Stark’s wrist, was one that bothered her endlessly, while the words etched in her own skin served as a constant reminder of her meeting with the man. Learning to write a different way, in that old-fashioned cursive that wasn’t taught in schools anymore, was a superficial way to convince herself she was actually doing something about her situation.

 

(In reality, she knew perfectly well that she was accomplishing nothing. She just moped in her room, and spent what little free time she had feeling sorry for herself. Not that she was going to ever admit it out loud or apologize for it anyway: she’d been rejected by her soulmate, so she felt entitled to as much moping as she wanted.)

 

“Sweetie, what’s going on with you?” Celia pushed on. Not that Darcy had expected her to give up that easily: she hadn’t simply inherited the woman’s eyes or her hair. The Lewis pig-headedness was a thing to behold.

 

“Nothing,” Darcy repeated (they’d been going at this for over five minutes already, and she could go for hours).

 

“And you’re lying to my face!” Just like that, the woman jumped back to her feet, her patience already wearing thin. “I’m just trying to help you, Darcy! Why are you behaving like such a brat?”

 

“Has it occurred to you that I don’t want to talk about it?” the teenager snapped back. “Not to you, not to anyone, not now, not ever! I just want you to leave me alone so I can finish my homework!”

 

Celia Lewis made a visible effort to swallow back whatever it was she wanted to shout. She paced for a few seconds back and forth between Darcy’s bed and desk, until she’d gotten her frustration back under control and was ready to speak (relatively) calmly once more. It was almost enough to convince the younger girl to confide in her mother about what had happened, but after months not breathing a word about the subject, Darcy found she suddenly _physically_ couldn’t even utter Tony Stark’s name out loud.

 

That was weird, to say the least.

 

“Darcy, sweetie,” Celia finally came back to crouch next to Darcy’s old desk chair once again. “I know I’m not the best mother. I know I mess up a lot. But. . .I’m trying, you know?”

 

Darcy huffed and forcefully swallowed back all that she wanted to say about that particular matter.

 

She knew precisely what she owed her mother. She’d known ever since Tommy Finke in sixth grade, whose parents had both lost their job around the same time, and whose entire family had had to live packed together in a single room in a motel outside of town. And she was appropriately grateful that, although Celia Lewis was much too in love with Jack Daniels, the woman still had at least enough sense to keep them both with a roof over their head and relatively well fed. That didn’t mean Darcy was going to ignore all the ways in which her mother wasn’t a real mother anymore.

 

The woman didn’t get to play mom once a year just to clear her conscience. It didn’t work like that.

 

“And I promise I’ll try harder,” Celia went on when she saw that Darcy wasn’t going to answer. “I swear I’ll cut off the booze. I’ll stay sober, sweetie. I’ll take care of you properly.”

 

It wasn’t the first time Darcy heard those promises—needless to say she didn’t believe them anymore, not for a second. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she replied. Although she’d meant for her tone to be calm, it simply came out as resigned. “You’ll stop for a week, a month, maybe two. And then Jacob will drop by for a couple days and we’ll be right back where we started.”

 

“You don’t get to judge me, Darcy,” Celia uttered slowly. Her tone had turned so icy, her calm was so exaggerated suddenly, that Darcy knew instantly she had crossed some kind of invisible line. “You haven’t met your soulmate yet and you have no idea what it’s like. You can blame me for the rest all you want, but you don’t get to judge the relationship I have with my soulmate—your _father_.”

 

Knowing there was no arguing with that (unless she finally admitted that she _had_ exchanged words with Tony freaking Stark, of all people) Darcy bit back everything that she wanted to say to that. Although Celia had demonstrated a surprising amount of patience so far, the teenager knew it wouldn’t last if she pushed on that particular issue, because if there were critics Celia didn’t tolerate, it was those aimed at her soulmate. And it was all the more ironic that Darcy now shared that experience with her mother, knew what a First Meeting felt like, how it changed you and how it made you grow up.

 

The only problem with that was that Darcy didn’t have the energy to argue with her mother any longer, and try to talk her down from her moral high ground—as shaky as said moral high ground was.

 

“You know what? I’m done.” With a long, painstaking sigh, the woman got back to her feet and stepped back, physically disengaging herself from the conversation. “I don’t wanna fight with you. I wanted you to have a nice birthday, because I know things have been tough for you and I- I know you think I’m the worst mom in the world—hell, maybe you’re right. But I’m trying, you know?” She shrugged. “Whatever. Stay here, finish your homework and don’t talk to me. See if I care. I’m gonna go to work—the rent is covered this month but we could always use the money anyway. If you decide you wanna talk after all, you know where to find me.”

 

And with those last words, she stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

 

Darcy remained sitting at her desk, staring unseeingly at the book in her hands and feeling like the biggest jerk on the planet. She almost called her mother back, to beg for forgiveness, tell her everything, that she’d never thought her mother was the worst mom in the world. But the words didn’t come out and she stayed right where she was, listening to the sounds of cupboard doors being opened and then slammed shut, to the soft clinking of glasses and bottles as Celia drank her customary three shots before she went out. Only minutes later, the front door slammed shut too and a heavy silence fell back over the apartment, so stifling Darcy could almost feel it weighing down on her shoulders.

 

She ignored it all—Tony Stark, her mom, the silence, the loneliness—and she got back to work.

 

On the more positive side of things, she’d never felt so motivated to one day get the hell out of Vegas.

 

* * *

 

 

Statistically speaking, Darcy had always known her chances of ending up at the local police station were higher than the national average for other teenagers her age. She was a kid from a rough neighborhood. It was all one hundred percent logical.

 

She wasn’t even the first or youngest one. José Morello had been caught last year joyriding with his older brothers in a car they’d stolen to celebrate José’s oldest brother’s parole (well, José had never been the sharpest tool in the shed, and apparently neither had his brothers). Savanah Beckett had been arrested a few times for shoplifting throughout middle school and had been since shipped off to juvie. And José and Savanah were among the least dangerous: neither of them had truly meant any harm. They were stupid, which Darcy knew as a fact since they’d been in the same classes for a while, but not mean at heart.

 

Some older kids in high school were already in gangs. They were the ones Darcy knew to keep away from—too angry already, too arrogant and cocky and young to listen to reason. Too convinced the world was a shitty place to try to see its good sides anymore. They were also famously acquainted with the Vegas Police Department.

 

So statistically speaking, living in the neighborhood she lived in, with the people she went to school with, Darcy knew the chances were high that she’d end up at the police station sooner than later.

 

In a gross lack of objectivity on her part, she hadn’t ever imagined to find herself seated across a police officer in these precise circumstances though. But to be fair, no child, no teenager, no matter how smart, ever seriously imagined their parents dying in the prime of their life. . .

 

A cup of something warm was gently deposited on the desk next to her and Darcy looked up to find Officer Danes had come back from her coffee run. She was a tall and imposing African-American woman, with dark chocolate-colored skin and long hair tied in a tight bun at the back of her head, and she wore her uniform proudly. Despite her unfailing professionalism, she held just enough compassion not to come across as cold.

 

Although Darcy had never particularly liked the police, she had to admit that, as far as learning of the untimely demise of your only family went, she could have done a lot worse than Officer Danes.

 

“Here you go, kiddo,” she told Darcy, taking a seat next to her. “It’s not the best coffee in town, but it’s warm.”

 

Quietly, Darcy thanked the woman and slowly took a sip of the burning hot beverage. She relished the scalding sensation on her tongue, welcomed the slight pain from it and the unfamiliar bitter taste.

 

“Did Candace say if it was really my mom down there?” It was hard to get the words out, but Darcy was never one to hide from the truth, no matter how cold or hard. She didn’t delude herself about the reason why she was brought to the station, or that it might all be a terrible mistake after all.

 

Celia Lewis had taken her car, not only drunk, but if the coppers were to be believed high as a kite too (it rarely happened, Darcy had told Officer Danes, unless a customer shared his dope while they were doing their business). She’d run a red light and gotten rammed into on the driver’s side. According to Officer Danes, she’d died on the spot. She hadn’t suffered—a meager consolation considering the final outcome.

 

“She confirmed it,” the policewoman said softly. “I’m really sorry for your loss, Darcy.”

 

The announcement was, of course, no surprise. After all, Celia’s things were found in the car, her papers, her phones, her handbag. . .bringing in Candace (one of her mom’s ‘friends’ from work) had only been a formality to confirm they had the right woman in the morgue. Still the finality of the words almost took Darcy’s breath away.

 

Instead she drank some more of her coffee.

 

“We’ve called social services,” Danes goes on, voice ludicrously quiet compared to the constant background noise of the busy station. “They’re sending in someone who’ll take you to a foster home.”

 

 _Oh_. Right. Foster Care. She should have known that was coming.

 

Darcy had heard some pretty scary horror stories about the foster system, mostly through kids at school whose friends had friends who knew somebody who was a foster kid. Some were too exaggerated for anyone to give them any sort of credit, but Darcy knew better than to ignore there was always a base of truth to any tale, no matter how far-fetched.

 

Instead of acknowledging the growing fear and uncertainty ignited in the pit of her stomach, she kept drinking her coffee and kept as calm as she could. Because, dammit, it was either stay quiet or have the Mother of all breakdowns in the middle of the police station.

 

(Officer Danes scored major points when she delicately pretended not to have noticed the tears that escaped before Darcy got it under control.)

 

“Do you have anyone we could contact?” the policewoman asked after a minute. “A family member? Or your father? He isn’t mentioned anywhere in your mother’s file, but if you gave me a name, we could find him. You wouldn’t stay in foster care for too long.”

 

“He hasn’t been by in over two years,” Darcy said with a shake of her head. “He might be anywhere from Mexico to Alaska. I’ve got no clue.”

 

“Doesn’t your mother have a phone number she uses to contact him?”

 

“He doesn’t do the ‘tied down thing’. He drops by from time to time, stays for a couple of days, and then goes away again. Mom just basically waits until he-” Darcy abruptly cut herself off when she realized what was wrong with that sentence. “I mean, she used to wait until he decided to show up.”

 

Officer Danes sighed a little, but (and Darcy marveled for a brief second at the odds that she’d meet such a tactful person during such an unlikely occasion) didn’t make any comment whatsoever on the relationship between Celia Lewis and her soulmate. She quickly crossed out something on a paper on her desk.

 

“Right, and I don’t think it’s necessary, but I need to ask anyway: what about your soulmate? Have you met them?”

 

Unbidden, the face of Tony Stark flashed before Darcy’s eyes and she flinched.

 

For the first time in what felt like ages, Darcy hadn’t thought of him at all—ever since Officer Danes and her partner had come knocking on the door of the apartment at four in the morning and told her about the accident. For hours, she’d sat in the station, waiting for the cops to localize one of her mom’s fellow prostitutes so they could ID the body.

 

And Tony Stark had been the furthest thing from her mind.

 

Officer Danes correctly read her reaction. “You’ve met them? Do you want me to call them? Can they come here? Take your custody until your majority?”

 

It was a legal arrangement Darcy had heard of before (according to the rumor mill at school, it had happened to a high school freshman a few years prior) in which a soulmate—or if they weren’t legal yet, their guardians or family—could take custody of their bonded rather than letting them go into foster care. The measure wasn’t a very popular one, and some politicians had even tried to have it cancelled altogether on concerns such as consent and morality when the soulmate was already a legal adult. But overall, it happened so rarely and meant less state-money spending, and no public official had ever managed to truly bring serious attention to the matter.

 

Abruptly put in the situation, Darcy vaguely wished she had the possibility to choose at all.

 

“No, he won’t come,” she finally told the woman. Mystified, she watched as the officer’s face fell—and it wasn’t even faked.

 

“Are you sure?” the older woman insisted gently. “You’re still young. If you’re worried, the social services can talk to his parents, clear up everything for you.” The assumption that Darcy’s soulmate was also underage was understandable, but way off. It certainly reminded Darcy of why she hadn’t piped a word of it to anyone for almost a year.

 

“He was a lot older than me,” she said with a shrug. She intended to keep it at that, but Officer Danes’ respectful silence somehow urged her to go on. “Thirty-three. I was coming back from the library and he was there, drunk tourist sitting on the curb. I just wanted to make sure he was okay, but then he said my words. . .He freaked out when he realized how young I was and he left not too long after that.”

 

As simplified a version of the encounter as it was, Darcy was taken by surprise by how easy it was to finally say it. After almost a year of complete silence over the matter, the words were almost forming on her lips by themselves, and with each one that escaped her, she felt lighter. Or as light as she was ever going to feel after learning her mother had died anyway—her mother, whom she’d barely spoken to ever since their last fight.

 

She didn’t consider for a minute to mention Stark’s name (and was ready to lie if asked about it). No matter how kind and considerate, there was no way Officer Danes was going to believe Darcy’s soulmate was one of America’s most famous.

 

“You’ve had a rough time, haven’t you?” the policewoman said after a minute or two. Darcy didn’t usually tolerate being the object of anyone’s pity, but when she looked up from her mug of coffee, all she found in the other woman’s eyes was understanding. “I know a little bit of what that’s like.”

 

And as it turned out, she really did.

 

During the next two hours, while they waited for the social worker to get there, Officer Danes told Darcy what she could expect from the foster system. She told her of the social workers, those who’d never care, those who were tired and had given up, and those who genuinely tried to help and whom she should turn to for help. She also told her of the foster families, that some of them sincerely cared and that others were only in it for the money. She explained exactly what Darcy should do if she ever was mistreated and who she should call (and who to call after that if the first couldn’t be bothered, and so on and so forth).

 

And finally she told her about the other kids, the bullies and delinquents she was going to meet, as well as the friends that she would undoubtedly make. She shared a few stories from her own childhood in the system, some sad, some revolting, and some actually funny, guaranteed her Darcy would make her own and would keep them her whole life.

 

By the time the social worker arrived, Darcy was scared, but she was determined too. She knew a little about what she could expect and she knew she could handle it, and she wouldn’t forget a word the police officer told her.

 

“Thank you,” she told Officer Danes as the woman walked her back to the social worker’s car. “You didn’t have to tell me all this. But it really helped.”

 

The dark-skinned woman gave her a slight smile, a curiously shy thing considering how tall and confident she appeared. “I met a lot of people who helped me when I was your age,” she said. “And I’m sure you’ll meet more after me.”

 

Darcy wasn’t so sure, but the feeling behind the policewoman’s words was nice to hear anyway. So she smiled—for the first time in months—and looked curiously when Officer Danes sent her a hesitant look, as if she wanted to add something.

 

“Officer?” the social worker called. She was a woman in her fifties, apathetic and who hadn’t really cared to acknowledge Darcy beyond their initial introductions (no need to be a genius to guess that her job wasn’t something she felt overly concerned with).

 

“Just a minute,” Danes retorted shortly. When she looked back down at Darcy, her eyes were more serious than the teenager had seen them so far. “Listen, Darcy, I know it might sound a little silly to hear right now, but I’d like you to remember something for me, so you can think on it later. Can you do that?”

 

Intrigued, Darcy shrugged. “Sure.”

 

The policewoman nodded with the smallest of smiles. “Whatever you grow up to be, don’t stay angry for too long.” The random bit of advice took the newly-orphaned girl by surprise. The expression on her face must have been telling because Officer Danes went on after only a second. “I went through a lot of different homes, and I met a lot of different kids, but those who didn’t make it all had that in common: they stayed angry their whole life. They had a right to be, just like you have a right to be angry—at your parents, at your soulmate, at the system—but they forgot to think first of how to make it out okay. They forgot to care about themselves first, about school, about their future, about having a better life one day.”

 

Darcy’s eyebrows kept rising higher on her forehead, surprised by how deep and personal an advice it was to share with a complete stranger. But Officer Danes had been through something similar to what Darcy was going through now, and she genuinely meant what she said.

 

“So get angry about what happened to you,” the older woman went on, tone deadly serious. “Be angry at how unfair it all is and then let it go. Make your peace with it. It won’t be easy, but it’ll be worth it and it’ll make it easier for you to see the brighter side of things after that, to find happiness where you can get it and never forget that you have a whole future ahead of you.”

 

And just like that, Darcy’s throat was closing up and her eyes were prickling again with oncoming tears. With a sniffle, she wiped her sleeve beneath her eyes, getting rid of the moisture there before it had the time to turn into the Niagara Falls.

 

“I’ll remember that, Officer Danes,” she finally said. “Thank you.”

 

The policewoman nodded, and for just a second, squeezed Darcy’s shoulder comfortingly with her hand. “Good luck, kid.”

 

With the social worker obviously growing impatient, Darcy quickly made her goodbyes after that. She got inside the car that smelled of cold tobacco, on the front passenger seat and watched as the police station and Officer Danes rapidly grew more and more distant.

 

She looked at the kind-hearted policewoman through the rearview window even as she had to twist herself in her seat to keep her in view.

 

In her mind, she couldn’t help but superpose the image with the one of Tony Stark’s car driving away (and she wondered if he’d ever looked back too). Of course, the two situations had little in common, but Darcy knew with the utmost certainty that, just like Tony Stark, she wouldn’t be forgetting Officer Danes anytime soon.

 

* * *

 

 

Darcy was bent over her chemistry book, fingers threaded through her hair (and erratically clenching every so often) as she tried to make sense of the problem she had to solve for her class. She was so concentrated she didn’t register Mrs. C’s soft voice at first and nearly jumped out of her skin when the older woman called a bit louder.

 

“Oh, hey! Mrs. C!” she greeted with a genuine grin when she caught sight of the older woman standing in the doorway. “Do you need anything?”

 

“Nothing, Darcy. I was just wondering if I could talk to you if you have a minute.”

 

“Sure.”

 

Before the woman had even taken a step inside the bedroom, Darcy scooted her chair back to face her fully. As she always did when she needed to talk, Mrs. C took a seat on the bed.

 

Darcy had been nervous as hell the first time Mrs. C asked to talk: from the moment the social worker brought her to Mr. and Mrs. C’s house, Darcy had been very careful not to mess up. Not out of fear, but because the couple was nice and tried to help the foster children entrusted to them. They were good people, not real parents (although they came closer than Celia had on most days), but a really good foster family anyway.

 

And Darcy hadn’t stopped wondering about how lucky she was to end up here ever since her first day in the house.

 

“Remember last time, when you told us you wanted to find a part-time job to start saving up money for university?” Mrs. C. asked as she smoothed a wrinkle on the bed idly with her hand. “Well, Brian and I have been talking. You haven’t been in our home for very long, but we both think that you’ve been very brave, and very responsible: despite what happened to your mother, you managed to keep your grades up, you even helped with Maya, Sandra and Timmy. . .”

 

Embarrassed, Darcy couldn’t help but lower her eyes.

 

As laudable as the older woman made it sound, Darcy hadn’t done all these things solely from the goodness of her heart. At least not at first. She’d always had pretty good self-preservation instincts after all, so she’d kept Officer Danes’ words in her mind and put them into practice as soon as she was put into a definite foster home.

 

To make sure she’d have some sort of chance at a future education (university had always been her Great Escape Plan from Vegas after all) she’d kept her school records immaculate. And since they seemed nice enough and she didn’t want to risk getting put into another home, a worse one, she’d tried to get into the foster parents’ good graces by helping out with the younger kids—there were three, Sandra in sixth grade, and Maya and Timmy respectively in first and fourth grade. It was only several weeks into her stay that she’d fully realized how great Mr. and Mrs. C truly were and she’d started helping out because she really wanted to.

 

Her main motivation came from the fact that the older couple had respected the time she’d spent at first, quiet and reserved and not really engaging anyone, mourning the loss of her mother. They’d given her time, letting Darcy find her marks in a new town, a new school, with new people, and helping her getting adjusted in small but significant ways (like showing her a new place in town every week-end, or lending her books about subjects she was interested in).

 

Their consideration wasn’t something Darcy took for granted, and she’d been working hard ever since to deserve her place in the couple’s house. Lately, it had even started to feel like an actual home.

 

“I didn’t really do much,” she said with an embarrassed shrug.

 

“You did,” Mrs. C insisted gently. She was always so calm, even when Maya threw one of her dreaded temper tantrums, as if nothing could faze her. “Brian and I have had a lot of children stay in our house over the years. We know firsthand how hard it can be for you kids to be taken from everything you know, and you’ve been very brave, Darcy. We wanted you to know that we’ve seen how hard you’re trying.”

 

Darcy felt her face heat up and floundered for something to say.

 

Other than the distracted praise teachers handed along with successful homework or tests, she wasn’t used to compliments. (Celia Lewis had showered her daughter with kind words once upon a time, but Darcy had been very young then and the memories were all but faded.)

 

From the corner of her eyes, Darcy saw Mrs. C smirk, no doubt at how red the teenager’s face had become: Mr. and Mrs. C had a killer sense of humor, though they didn’t let it out very often. While Mrs. C was fonder of dry and sarcastic wit, her husband was one giant goofball which made Darcy thankful the man wasn’t in the room or she would’ve never heard the end of it.

 

Mrs. C took pity on Darcy enough that she didn’t comment on how flustered the girl was.

 

“Anyway, it’s not something we have ever done so early before,” the older woman continued, “but Brian and I feel that you’ve shown yourself to be a very responsible girl. So I’ve talked to a friend of mine who owns a bakery downtown and if you want, you can start working there next week after school.”

 

Darcy’s eyes went wide. “Really?” she exclaimed, barely believing it.

 

“Really,” Mrs. C confirmed, grinning. “Brian will take you to the bank this week-end to open you an account for your savings.”

 

And before she knew it, Darcy was out of her chair and hugging the older woman tight. “That’s amazing! Thank you, Mrs. C! That’s so awesome-” In two seconds flat, she realized what exactly she was doing and promptly let go—distantly wondering how long it had been since she last hugged someone. Darcy wasn’t usually one for spontaneous demonstrations of physical affection, all the more when it came to people she hadn’t known all that long, and she shot her foster parent an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Mrs. C.”

 

“Don’t you worry about it.” And, as if the day wasn’t surprising enough, the woman promptly rose from her seat on the bed and pulled a sheepish Darcy into a firm embrace. “And I’m glad to help, sweetie.”

 

With the unbelievable consideration she and her husband always demonstrated, Mrs. C pulled away before Darcy could become truly uncomfortable. She let the teenager go, leaving Darcy feeling just the right mix of embarrassment and affection.

 

“Now, we do have a few conditions we want you to be aware of before you decide on anything,” the adult woman said sternly, although the corners of her mouth were twitching and betraying her effort to appear serious. “First, no more than three hours at work after you’re done with school, no more than six on the week-ends, and overall no more than twelve hours in a week.”

 

Darcy opened her mouth to argue but Mrs. C held an imperious finger that immediately silenced her.

 

“That’s non-negotiable, Darcy,” she warned. “We know that the money is for university, but you can’t go neglecting school either. If your grades are impacted, you’ll lose your chances at getting a scholarship. You’ve been working too hard for Brian and I to allow that. We’ve seen your school records, alright? We know you’re a bright kid and we want you to succeed. I’ve asked my friend about what she’d done with her own kids: she never let them work more than twelve hours on a school week either, and that’s already a lot. If it’s going well, we can see about you taking a few more hours during the holidays, alright?”

 

“Alright,” Darcy agreed. There was no arguing with that logic after all.

 

“Good. Now, second condition. Brian and I reserve the right to have you stop working if we ever feel that it’s having a negative impact on your schoolwork, or on you.”

 

“I promise, Mrs. C, I’ll keep all my straight A’s!”

 

“I’m sure you will,” the older woman conceded, her tone reflecting nothing but confidence that Darcy could keep her word. “But when you start your first job, it can get a bit. . .well, it’s nice to feel independent and earn your own money, you know? And we don’t want you to get so focused on the benefits of your new job that you forget why you’ve been working so hard in school.” Her eyes lit up as something seemed to occur to her and the older woman smiled. “Of course, if you realize baking pastries is your calling and you want to become a baker one day, then feel free to tell us and we’ll renegotiate our arrangement, alright?”

 

Almost despite herself, Darcy found herself smiling back. “Promise you’ll be the first to know.”

 

“Good!” Mrs. C beamed. “And our final condition—it’s not one I like, but I have to ask. Even though it’s your own money and we don’t have a say in what you do with it, Brian and I wanted to ask you to be mindful of what you buy with it. I know it’s not something anyone likes to hear, but the foster system is very strict about what the kids can keep with them when they go someplace: remember that something could happen to Brian and I, and you may have to move again, alright? Also, please remember that Sandra, Maya and Timmy are living with you as well. So nothing excessively fancy that would make them green with jealousy alright?” Despite the contrite look in her eyes, she gave Darcy a wink. “I know how great it feels when you can rub something in other people’s face, just not those three, alright?”

 

Although Darcy hadn’t ever considered the question, she immediately understood what the foster mother meant, and she nodded in agreement. “I get enough of that at school,” she shrugged. “All the kids in my class have the latest phones and music players. . .I wouldn’t do it here.”

 

The older woman immediately frowned. “Anyone giving you a hard time?” she asked. “I’ve got no doubt you can handle yourself, but if you need us to go to school talk to some teachers or parents, we’ll do it right away.”

 

“No, not really, don’t worry, Mrs. C.”

 

The town where Mr. and Mrs. C lived was outside of Vegas, absolutely tiny by comparison, and the school had none of the would-be gangbangers Darcy was used to dealing with. She was the outsider in her new school, the foster kid, and hadn’t managed to make any friends (not that she’d tried all that hard, truth be told), and she wasn’t the least bit impressed by the local jocks and other popular crew. Having kids in P.E. laughing behind her back because she didn’t have a cellphone or a Myspace account didn’t really faze her.

 

It helped that, as opposed to her previous school, she actually had a house she didn’t mind coming back to after class—a true safe haven where she could relax. With people in it that weren’t drunk out of their mind.

 

“Alright then, but come to us about anything, alright?” When Darcy nodded with a thankful smile, Mrs. C let out a relieved sigh. “Good.” She turned to leave, but whirled on her heels back to face Darcy only a step later. “Ah! And I wanted to tell you: if you want to get yourself one of those i-thingy all the kids love so much nowadays, you can tell me or Brian and we’ll take you into town so you can buy it.”

 

Although touched by the offer, Darcy resignedly shook her head. “I can’t, Mrs. C. You can only put music on these things if you have a computer.”

 

“You can use our computer!” the older woman shook her head dismissively at Darcy’s concern. “I think Brian wants one too, anyway, so you’ll be doing us a favor: we’ll learn with you how those things work!”

 

That, more than anything Mrs. C had told her that day, made Darcy feel like she was so happy she could fly.

 

She absolutely _loved_ music. It wasn’t a passion she’d ever really had the chance to fulfill before, not when her mother had tolerated no other background noise than the TV and reality shows. She’d had a radio in her room back in Vegas (that she’d hadn’t been able to keep, unfortunately). She’d listened to music during lunchbreaks at school with her friends, from time to time. And when she’d gone to the Mexican fast-food joint to get dinner, she’d asked Tito about his favorite kinds of music and artists.

 

But she’d never had her own music player before—her favorite songs in her pocket that she could listen to whenever she wanted to. . .wasn’t that a thrilling prospect?

 

She was so thrilled, in fact, that she barely resisted the urge to tackle Mrs. C into another hug. She’d never felt so affectionate with anyone in ages.

 

“Awesome!” she exclaimed, keeping her voice just short of a very embarrassing squeal of delight. (Despite her best efforts, she didn’t manage to keep from jumping a little in excitement on her spot.) “Thank you, Mrs. C!”

 

“Don’t mention it,” the older woman immediately replied, tone warm and smile sunny. “I’ll let you get back to work now.”

 

And Darcy went back to her desk (well, after a short happy dance in the middle of her room) feeling now like she could easily tackle a dozen chemistry equations without breaking a sweat.

 

The pay from her first three weeks of work at Annie’s Baked Delights went to buying a brand new, neon pink iPod with a 32 Go storage capacity. Darcy had never spent so much money at once in her life and felt downright indecent for it. Although happy at a dream finally come true, she felt so guilty at the immense expense she was very careful later on not to spend anymore: she’d need every penny she could scrape for university.

 

Her little iPod was her faithful companion at all moments of the day from the moment she got it. The sweet voice of Ella Fitzgerald (one of Mr. C’s favorites, he had all her albums) helped her tune out the voices in the cafeteria. The Runaway’s angry songs gave her energy in the mornings when her dreams reminded her of things she’d rather have forgotten altogether. Eminem’s latest album played in the bakery’s kitchen when she worked with Dylan and they felt like shouting like morons while they prepared new batches of cinnamon rolls.

 

She kept the device like a treasure for years, treating it so carefully that, by the time she left Mr. and Mrs. C’s, it barely had a scratch on it. It remained the first thing she’d ever worked for to buy by herself, a concrete proof that she could work and accomplish something—and that she’d keep on working and make something of herself.

 

(Tony Stark be damned.)

 

* * *

 

 

Curled up on her bed, computer on her lap and a mug of one-hour-old coffee in hand, Darcy was trying her best not to panic.

 

The bitter taste of her lukewarm beverage helped (it always did) but only marginally. The only thing really keeping her from losing it for good and bursting into hysterical tears was the fact that she didn’t want to wake up her roommate—Penny could be especially bitchy when she didn’t get enough sleep.

 

Two days ago, Tony Stark had been attacked in Afghanistan. Eleven of the US Army soldiers escorting him had been killed and Tony Stark himself was nowhere to be found. The news of the attack had only been made public today, late in the afternoon while Darcy was at work (a little bakery/café place on campus that had hired her the minute she came in with a résumé and already two years of experience under her belt) and she’d only seen the headlines that night, just as she settled in bed to read the news before sleeping.

 

She hadn’t been able to close her eyes since.

 

Instead, she’d spent the past three hours and a half reading all the articles she could find and trying to understand what had happened. Essentially, there wasn’t all that much information though: Tony Stark’s convoy had been attacked in the middle of the desert. There were no claims from known terrorist groups. No ransom demands. No nothing.

 

And Darcy suspected she was the only one on the whole planet who actually knew for sure he was still alive: she’d been checking her mark obsessively since reading the first headline announcing the billionaire’s disappearance. Her eyes flickered every five seconds down to her wrist, trailing over each stroke and line and squiggle. She’d almost had a few massive freak-outs already because she thought her words weren’t quite as dark as she remembered them to be. Other times, she tried not to reflect for too long on how relieved she felt when she saw the words were as black as ever on her pale skin.

 

Clicking on another link, a tab opened on her browser and Darcy waited as the video loaded—only a few seconds were needed thankfully, seeing as the Internet connection in the dorms was actually pretty good. She almost let slip an audible curse when the video started and she caught sight of the bleached-blonde-straight-white-teeth anchor and the little Fox News logo down in the bottom left corner.

 

“Breaking news in the case of missing American billionaire Tony Stark,” the anchor announced. She would have almost sounded appropriately grave if her eyes hadn’t sparkled with barely restrained excitement. “Inside sources confirmed that the famous CEO’s convoy was attacked by a terrorist organization using Stark’s very own weapons. Stark Industries officials have so far categorically denied the claims and-”

 

With a snort and a derogatory word or two about Fox News muttered under her breath, Darcy closed the tab and went on to more reliable news media.

 

_Stark Industries selling weapons to terrorists, right._

 

Aimlessly browsing content on the New York Times website (without expecting anything since NYT hadn’t posted anything new in hours), Darcy took a sip from her mug. She was almost out—which meant a trip to the café a block away from her dorm building if she wanted to get a refill.

 

Coffee had been her go-to drink ever since she drank it for the first time when she was fifteen and sitting in a police station, while an officer told her that her mother had died in a car accident. One would think the experience would have put her off coffee completely, but far from it. Darcy loved coffee.

 

The strong, unmistakable taste reminded her of her past, that time in the station when she was at the lowest of the low, and most importantly, how far she’d come since then. It took her back to Mr. and Mrs. C’s house, the first real home she’d ever had, and the breakfasts they would eat while all sitting together at the kitchen isle—the months she’d spent mourning her mother and being angry at the soulmate who didn’t want her, before she managed to take Officer Danes’ advice and made her peace with it. It brought back all the memories of slow week-ends during which Mr. C had taught her to read the news in preparation for university, and unknowingly shown her that there was a darker side to Tony Stark tabloids conveniently never mentioned.

 

It was thanks to Mr. C’s impassioned speeches about Stark Industries and other weapons manufacturing companies like them that Darcy had finally realized she was in fact better off without Stark, the womanizer and inventor of ways to mass-murder other humans.

 

But even though Darcy had actively started participating in rallies to protest against S.I. from the moment she entered Culver, she’d never wished for Tony Stark to get hurt, much less kidnapped by terrorists.

 

_‘Surviving soldier from Afghanistan terrorist attack comes forward: ‘They went straight for Stark’.’_

 

Distracted for a second by the headline (a recent post from BBC News, not her favorite source but a better starting point for any kind of research than Fox—because, really, the US Army’s favorite private contractor selling weapons to terrorists?) Darcy put her mug on the nightstand and with her left fingers clicked on the article. A generic photo of American army soldiers greeted her, followed by a rather short article about a quote from one of the surviving soldiers from Tony Stark’s convoy. In short, nothing new or tangible.

 

Out of her own volition, Darcy’s eyes flickered down to her wrist, and an audible sigh of relief slipped through her lips. In the past five minutes since she’d last checked, the words hadn’t faded a single bit.

 

The rustle of bedsheets startled her out of her thoughts and her head snapped to the side to find her roommate turning in her bed.

 

“What time is it?” Penny asked sleepily.

 

“Sorry,” Darcy immediately apologized and closed her laptop. “It’s really late. I’ll stop now. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

 

Penny groaned and slowly extricated her arm from beneath the comforter. “Hey, no big deal,” she said after a second. “You’re a pretty cool roommate usually—not like my friends’ roommates from the horror stories they’ve been telling me. Anyway, what’s keeping you up? Everything okay?”

 

The question and the genuine concern behind it took Darcy by surprise. She and Penny got along alright, but they didn’t really hang out. They weren’t close enough to be called friends and they’d never really talked so far. For a short second, Darcy felt at a loss for words, before she managed to muster a small smile.

 

“It’s no big deal,” Darcy finally said. “I started reading the news and couldn’t fall asleep.”

 

To her further surprise, Penny actually sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. “Something happened?”

 

“Well, nothing immediately relevant for us exactly, just. . .Tony Stark disappeared in Afghanistan a couple days ago.  He was there for a contract and his convoy was attacked. Some soldiers were killed, but they have no idea where he’s been taken to or if he’s alive.”

 

“Wow.” There was no way Penny could imagine the significance of the event for Darcy personally, but as an international relations major, the other student could at least grasp the implications the attack would have on US politics, even when she was half-asleep. “Has the White House made a statement yet?”

 

“Oh, yeah,” Darcy waggled her eyebrows in a meager attempt at humor that went completely unnoticed in the dark room. “Full of self-righteous indignation, promises of raining down Hellfire upon the enemies of America, economic warfare on anyone who so much as helped the terrorists take one of our country’s best and brightest and richest. . .”

 

“Oh, man,” Penny muttered. “I can think of a few activist groups on campus who’re going to be celebrating tomorrow.” Darcy could only groan in assent, suddenly not all that proud of the demonstrations she’d gone to in the light of new events. “Well, not like Stark being MIA’s going to stop S.I. from manufacturing more weapons anyhow—like they’re crazy enough to stop milking that patent cow.”

 

Although Darcy heartily agreed (even with their evil scientist boy genius gone, the rest of the board most likely had enough patents in their pockets to keep the production going for a least a decade, not even to mention the rest of their engineers, reputably the best in the world) she decided to cut the conversation short. She suddenly felt too guilty for spending years thinking the worst of Tony Stark. It was admittedly silly, but she couldn’t help it.

 

“Sorry again for waking you,” she told her roommate.

 

“Nah, don’t worry. That was actually pretty big. I’m gonna be setting a Google alert first thing in the morning: Preston’s definitely gonna talk about that in his class.”

 

And because Penny was one of those horrible people who could fall asleep in the blink of an eye, it only took her a few seconds before she was once again breathing deeply and evenly, snuggly back in dreamland. In her own bed, Darcy stayed awake and staring up at the barely discernible ceiling for a lot longer than that.

 

In fact, she didn’t get much sleep for the rest of the night, or the following nights after that.

 

After years of not letting herself care about Tony Stark, her every waking thoughts were suddenly directed at him. Maybe because of the phantom pains she’d get throughout her body at the most random times of the day or the night (that she naively blamed on previously undiagnosed hypochondria) and that she tried really hard not to think about too much.

 

It was unsettling in more ways than one, to go from ignoring the mark circling her wrist to checking it obsessively, from the minute she woke up and every time she could get some kind of privacy throughout the day. To go from almost hating Tony Stark and everything he stood for (weapons designing, unbridled capitalism and shameless womanizing), to feeling guilty and ashamed for all the times she’d openly criticized and insulted him.

 

To go from wishing she’d never met him and his words weren’t etched on her skin, to praying that, wherever he was, he would be alright.

 

* * *

 

 

“So you’re a. . .” Doctor Foster looked up from the application to Darcy, eyes catching for a fraction of a second on the handmade scarf and Fimo earrings. “. . .political science major.”

 

Said political science major nodded and smiled as enthusiastically as she could. “Yes, with a minor in computer sciences.”

 

“Uhm, yes. I see that.” The astrophysicist cleared her throat, awkwardly skipping over the information listed in Darcy’s application once again.

 

Darcy could take a few guesses as to why the older woman was so surprised by the candidature. There was no obvious connection between Darcy’s choice of studies and Doctor Foster’s internship. Alright, there was no connection at all. In the section where she was supposed to explain her motivations, Darcy had written nothing.

 

Truth be told, she hadn’t expected the scientist to call her back for an interview at all.

 

Now that she was here though, Darcy was kind of hoping she’d get the position. No matter how incredibly perfect getting away for a while sounded, she liked Doctor Foster’s attitude so far: the woman had been buried in her notes when Darcy arrived, having almost forgotten the appointment. And ever since Darcy had sat on the opposite side of the old desk, Jane Foster had been a non-stop source of activity, keeping an eye on the applicant and the other on the computer screen, regularly taking notes in a small Moleskine overflowing with added papers, magazine cuttings and covered in scribbles and rough sketches.

 

“Well, the computer sciences part could come in handy,” the petite woman finally relented. “I use a lot of computerized equipment. Are you familiar with repairing computers and integrated circuits?”

 

“I know the basics,” Darcy admitted honestly. “Or at least I know enough to find my way around components.”

 

“Well, that’s good.” There seemed to be some relief on the astrophysicist’s face. “That’s very good, actually. My equipment is. . .well, I made it myself, so no one’s used to this kind of technology, anyway. _But_ if you’re willing to learn how to use it and occasionally repair it. . .”

 

“That’s no problem,” Darcy immediately assured her. “I learn very fast. That’s one thing where being a poli sci major comes in handy: I’m used to basically ingurgitating as much data as possible. If you could see the number of books on our teachers’ reading lists. . .”

 

Her attempt at a joke at least made Jane Foster chuckle. “I believe you,” she said. “Alright then, there’s just another point I want to clarify with you, if that’s alright. I was wondering about why you applied to this internship?”

 

The real answer to that was a bit too complicated—and way too personal—for Darcy to actually admit to it to anyone. Ever.

 

It involved Tony Stark, her soulmate, and now a worldwide revered super hero. It boiled down to Darcy’s insecurities too, more than she liked to admit even to herself. Because, as proud as Darcy was of what she’d accomplished, all the more that she’d accomplished it on her own and through honest hard work, it was difficult not to feel tiny and insignificant, and wonder why the universe would think it was a good idea to make her the destined (and unwanted) half of _Iron Man_.

 

It was also very difficult to start actually _liking_ your soulmate from a distance, watching the incredible man he could be, reading about his bravery and his genius. In fact, it was all the more difficult that, the more she grew to actually like and respect him, the more it hurt to see him on the covers of people magazines, with a different woman on his arm each time.

 

But she couldn’t say that her sole motivation for applying to an internship in Middle-of-Nowhere, New Mexico, was because she wanted to get away from all this for a while.

 

So she lied through her teeth.

 

“I have an interest in astrophysics,” she said, repeating word for word the little speech she had prepared just in case. “What I read is mostly in layman’s terms, of course, but it’s fascinating to think there’s more out there than we know. Your research isn’t as theoretical as the rest, and that’s why I got interested in it.”

 

Jane Foster nodded slowly. “Right,” she said and looked down at the application. “If only the rest of the physics community thought the same.” The last was muttered so low Darcy almost didn’t catch it (and clearly got the impression she wasn’t supposed to hear that). “Well, I’m gonna be honest with you: you’re the only applicant. And while I would have preferred an actual science major for this internship, your background in computer sciences is definitely a plus so. . .if you want the internship, it’s yours.”

 

Darcy’s eyes widened dramatically. She definitely had _not_ expected that.

 

“In the interest of full disclosure,” the brown-haired woman went on resignedly, as if she didn’t believe Darcy would take the job. “There’ll be a lot of paperwork, a lot of hard-data processing. And of course, since we’ll be analyzing auroras, the hours won’t be very regular. With that being said, I’d appreciate it if you could give me a definite decision as soon as possible-”

 

“I’m coming!” Darcy exclaimed, so excited all of a sudden that she practically squeaked. “Of course I want the internship!”

 

“Oh.” Doctor Foster blinked a few times. “ _Oh_. Alright then. Great.”

 

“Thank you, Doctor Foster, you’re not going to regret this,” Darcy grinned, feeling happier and lighter than she had in years.

 

“Well, I hope that you won’t either,” the physicist replied and hesitantly smiled back. “Now, I’m going to leave for Puente Antiguo on the twenty-first, right after the end of first term. I want to get started as soon as possible, but you don’t have to be there before the start of the second term in January, on the. . .third or fourth, I don’t remember.”

 

“I can come with you on the twenty-first, help you with moving your equipment to your lab in Puente Antiguo,” Darcy assured her. “My job only has a two weeks notice and the last of my exams is on the fourteenth.”

 

The older woman faltered a little. “You can spend Christmas with your family. I swear it’ll have no consequences on the overall evaluation if you come later.”

 

“I don’t have any—family, I mean,” Darcy replied honestly (it might have been oversharing for a job interview, but she wanted to make up for her earlier lie about motivations). “If I don’t spend Christmas working with you, I’ll just end up working at the bakery anyway.”

 

“Alright,” Doctor Foster said simply. Having heard countless ‘sorry’s for the loss of her family, Darcy was thankful for the woman’s lack of empty apologies. “And. . .your second term’s courses?”

 

“I just need the credits from the internship to graduate,” Darcy assured her. “I don’t leave campus in the summer, so I’ve been taking extra classes basically ever since I started at Culver. I’m thinking of taking a few long-distance learning classes,  but I promise it won’t interfere on your internship at all.”

 

“Far be it from me to dissuade you from taking extra classes,” Jane said emphatically. “I think I spent all my summers during my doctorate going to all the science classes I could manage.”

 

They shared an understanding then, for a fleeting second, but it was enough that Darcy felt quite optimistic about the internship to come. Although in completely different academic pursuits, two hard-working spirits recognized each other—two girls who preferred spending their summer in classrooms rather than on the coast or in Mexico.

 

Darcy was particularly happy about the whole thing.

 

She’d initially looked for an internship in the most remote corner of the United States that she’d been able to find. New Mexico was as far from everything as one could get, and, after seeing photos on Facebook of Tony and his latest top model conquest, it had sounded like a good idea to spend six months there. With slower Internet access. And a lot less TV and magazines. Doing something completely different that didn’t necessitate reading the news everyday.

 

She’d postulated on a whim. She’d never expected to get it. And she hadn’t hoped for a second that she might get a friend out of it.

 

As optimistic as she was when she left Doctor Foster’s office, she never imagined, not even for a second, just how much her life was going to change in New Mexico. And that she’d never see the world with the same eyes again.


End file.
